


Master, Heal Thyself

by Pygmy Puff (ppuff)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Classic Doctor Who References, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Post-Episode: s10e12 The Doctor Falls, Spoilers for Episode: s10e12 The Doctor Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 23:03:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11390256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ppuff/pseuds/Pygmy%20Puff
Summary: The Master doesn't want to regenerate yet, not when he cannot get the Doctor out of his mind. Spoilers for The Doctor Falls.





	Master, Heal Thyself

**Author's Note:**

> This is my attempt to bring hope, witness, and reward to Missy's ending.

He decided he didn’t want a cuppa after all.

Fighting his regeneration energy — because he didn’t want to quite become _her_ yet — the Master stumbled into his TARDIS. The cybermen were too busy upgrading themselves to notice, and for reasons unknown to him, the image of armies upon armies of cybermen imprinted heavily on his mind. It was like a visual whisper, an invitation for him to figure out once and for all how to rule over a race that was constantly evolving. Pity. He’d like to command over a whole planet’s worth of cybermen someday. But with what he’d just done to himself (herself... no! _No_ change yet), he supposed he may never get the chance.

The spare dematerialization circuit worked brilliantly. Missy was of some use after all. He really was quite fond of her. If only the Doctor hadn’t got in the way, they’d be traveling the stars now, himself and herself. No need for friends. No need to degrade oneself to interact with inferior life forms.

The drums in his head were getting louder. They never truly went away, these siren calls of destruction and death. Thudthudthudthud. _It’s time, it’s time, it’s time, it’s time._

“No!” he screamed, and the pain on his injured side flared up in raw nerves. “I will... not...” he gasped, hand fumbling to activate the time rotor. He needed to get out of here, before it happened. Before _she_ happened.

But it was beginning. Images of his past selves floated across his mind. _A boy, so full of innocence, so trusting of his elders who were leading him up to look inside the Time Vortex._

_A young man, known as Koschei, making a pact with Theta to travel the stars._

“Get. Out. of my head!”

Damn him. Damn him for being the reason for both his deaths. Damn him for being so _present_ , through all of his lives, even now.

The drums beat louder.

_He was on Earth, meeting Theta, who was now the Doctor. And there were Autons, the Nestene Consciousness set loose on the planet, and he was on the telephone._

_“Hello, Doctor, is that you?”_

_“Who is this? What do you want?”_

_“Simply to say goodbye, Doctor.”_

_And then there was the Doctor with a ridiculous grin and a ridiculous scarf and himself with a different face. He watched as the Doctor climbed up a large dish structure as he tilted the dish, causing the Doctor to fall. It was one of his most treasured wins. He didn’t say goodbye that time. But as he flew away in his TARDIS, he couldn’t help but wonder what the Doctor’s new face was going to look like._

_And then there was the Doctor — three, four, five of them — and he was re-experiencing the tingling feeling spreading up his spine that was in equal parts dread and excitement. The Time Lords had requested his cooperation to save the Doctor (all versions of the Doctor) in exchange for full pardon of his crimes. They needn’t have asked. “A cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about.”_

“Nononono! Why is it always the Doctor, Doctor, Doctor!” He banged a fist on his TARDIS console, ignoring another spike of pain. But all he managed was to induce the next flash of memory. Yet another different face (for both of them) and in a different Earth country, in America , him inside an ambulance with a human boy, chasing the Doctor, watching him propel just beyond his grasp with a human girl on a motorcycle.

_“I have wasted all my lives because of YOU, Doctor!”_

It was always him chasing the Doctor. Every face.

_He was himself, but the Doctor was not yet this one. He had turned him old but the people’s faith in his goodness had made him young again. That beautiful, young face was crying._

_“Regenerate, just regenerate! Please,_ please! _Just regenerate! Come on –”_

_“And spend... the rest of my life, imprisoned, with you?”_

_“But you’ve got to! Come on. It can’t end like this!”_

_It didn’t end like that. His victory was snatched out of his grip when he was resurrected only to face Rassilon._

_“Get out of the way,” the Doctor said._

_“Get out of the way,” he also said. One. Two. Three. Four._

He was leaking heavily now, blood and artron energy flowing out of the spot of Missy’s betrayal. But not yet. No. Not here. Not like this. Not with _him_ in his mind.

The Master dematerialized his TARDIS.

It was fitting, perhaps, where his TARDIS took him next. 

 

The Doctor’s TARDIS was dark, with interior lights dimmed as if the ship was mourning the inevitable passing of that idiot who was even now throwing his life away five hundred floors below. There was no resistance when he pushed the door open. The Master sneered at this Type 40 model. A museum piece. With functions so basic that all its resources were probably directed toward fighting the pull of the black hole above. There was not a hum of recognition of who he was.

The one who once held her hostage. The one who once turned her into a paradox machine.

Yes, this TARDIS was decrepit. It was the only acceptable reason. The alternative would have been unthinkable: that the TARDIS was as forgiving of him as the Doctor.

He dragged himself over the threshold. The time rotor at the center of the control room glowed as if to welcome him. The light illuminated his slumped form, leaning against the railing by the entrance, the beats of his failing hearts growing weaker by the second.

And then it was dark again, perhaps a small mercy for shrouding the impending doom of a Time Lord.

He wasn’t surprised when the hologram projection whirred and he found himself staring at the Time Lady he was going to be. Ah.

So it was over. She (he, himself) was dead.

The Missy in the hologram smirked.

“Oh, hi honey. Don’t look at me with _that_ expression on your face. You didn’t really think I only worked on the TARDIS engine, did you? You really are very naughty. The circuitry running your emergency protocol system was completely fried. And how’s a girl supposed to resist upgrading your hologram projection system? Don’t I look better in this projection than all the previous ones you’ve seen?”

There was a wink. She was _flirting_ with the Doctor. The Master wanted to spit at her, but the hologram was too far away.

“Well, I suppose I should get to the point. I’m dead. Boom! Bye-bye body. Might get a new one but I wouldn’t know now, would I?

“I’m going to save you time guessing, so here it goes, the facts of my passing: I’ve properly turned good. I stood with you in the end. I’m tired of being in this body. I once destroyed a planet by building a bomb out of cotton candy. Oh,” she exclaimed. “Dear me. One or more of those may be a lie.”

It was plain to anyone who had spent any amount of time with his future self that she loved being Missy. And he knew that, for all her claims that she was turning good, Missy would never yield to the Doctor’s brand of goodness in the end. Too sentimental, they’d both agreed. Then shared a laugh at Bill-the-cyberman’s expense.

And to be exact, it was a torpedo that he had built out of cotton candy that one time. The aftermaths were horrific of the bright pink sticky persuasion. He never ate cotton candy again after that day.

The Master tasted bitterness clawing up his throat. So if there was only one truth among the lies... was it possible that Missy had known all along that, one day, she would choose to stand with the Doctor?

The hologram Missy blew a kiss at him. Despite the playfulness, wetness was gathering in her eyes. The Master chose not to ponder on this observation.

Missy continued: “Tell you what, Doctor. You’re probably hating yourself right now. Relax. Death is no big deal. We’ve both been through it loads of times. I’ll see you again with my new face and maybe you’ll get a new one too. Give being a Time Lady a try. I highly recommend it.”

There was a pause that was several heartbeats too long. Missy’s mask was cracking. The tears were really obvious now.

“It’s funny how when you’re trying to say your last words, nothing comes to mind. You know what? I just want you to know this.” She brought her hands up to her temples. “How beautiful you are. More beautiful than the stars we were going to see together. You’ve missed the obvious, you silly sausage. I never needed any of the beauty out in the universe. Being your friend... that is enough.”

A sob. The tears escaped.

“Goodbye, Doctor.”

Missy closed her eyes. The hologram started to play a memory.

_They were sitting in plushed chairs in an enclosure of some sort, some bastardization between a home and a TARDIS. Piles upon piles of paper sat on a small table between them. They were both reading something._

_“Oh, what a baby!” the Doctor mocked, sarcasm dripping from the regional brogue that was coming out so strongly in the Earth language he was speaking. “Can you believe this? 'When my mother asks me to clean my room I say no. Therefore it is proof that free will exists'.”_

_“But my dear, at least there’s_ _an attempt at logic. You should read mine –” Missy stabbed a finger at her piece of paper. “'Jesse tells Willy that if he makes the jump, it will be his highest, and he’ll be free. So we see that free will exists even in fish, our evolutionary ancestor. Therefore, humans have free will.' Atrocious! I’m pretty sure this student of yours clicked on the wrong Wikipedia search result and didn’t care enough to backspace out of the 'Free Willy' entry. That’s a movie, by the way.”_

_They were silent for a moment, then the Doctor’s eyes lit up._

_“Oh, listen to this one: 'Minecraft has artificial intelligence with simulated characters choosing their own actions. Therefore this is reflective of human free will.' It’s so incoherent that it’s brilliant, really –” He turned toward Missy, who mouthed 'brilliant' with a sneer and an eye roll. “She’s talking about a game. Half of my students play it during my lectures. They’re never as stealthy as they think.”_

_The Doctor looked self-satisfied at his own brilliance and Missy hummed, like age-old couples who didn’t need to verbalize anything to know that they were questioning each other’s intelligence._

_They marked several papers without commentating. Then Missy squealed, “Ooh, a one-sentence essay! 'I have free will not to write 3,000 words on this stupid subject.' I like this student, Doctor. Give her a gold star, please?”_

_“That’s not how it works –”_

_“It_ is _how it works! You give an order, she disobeys. Girl after my own hearts.”_

_“But that’s –”_

_“Not allowed? You shouldn’t be a hypocrite. Don’t you remember? The university hired you to lecture on farming and agriculture. When was the last time you even came near that topic? Sorry, honey, you’re losing this round. Student: one. Doctor: zero.”_

_“Missy...”_

_A look of feigned innocence. “What? Am I wrong?”_

_“I’m warning you –”_

_“Ooh, I like that. Say it again?”_

_The Doctor’s face turned bright red._

_“I mean it. Back down or it’s going to happen.”_

_Missy giggled. She looked delighted._

_“The Doctor doesn’t like it when his students are right!” she sing-songed._

_Those eyebrows raised, and the wolfish grin appeared. “You’ve brought this down on yourself, Missy.”_

 

The Master watched as the banter dissolved into first a flinging of a few essays, then a full-on war with entire stacks of paper dancing through the air. He knew the memory was a gift to the Doctor, offering him a glimpse, from her perspective, of a carefree Doctor unburdened by the weight of the universe. The focus was supposed to be on him. But the Master couldn’t tear his eyes away from Missy.

She was laughing.

Not calculated cackles or nervous giggles, but genuine, uninhibited laughter.

She was _happy_ with the Doctor.

Missy managed to attain what he never did, what he couldn’t achieve through imprisoning the Doctor as a shriveled old man forced to endure his presence for a year that never truly existed.

She’d repaired what had been broken. Master and Doctor. Koschei and Theta. Friends.

 

The hologram ended with the opening of a compartment, revealing an object meant for the Doctor.

Missy’s — his — confession dial.

There wasn’t any actual confession in there, he knew. The lack of a conscience made things much easier that way. But he did know that the dial was filled with elaborate palaces and royal homes based on what he liked from all across the universe. Let no one say that the Master failed to plan for his retirement from physical life in style. What better way to spend eternity than rolling in the fulfillment of every ambition he had pursued in life?

Besides, he knew the Time Lords’ cruelty. Fallen into the wrong hands, confession dials could be used as instruments of torture. He’d deactivated that setting many regenerations ago. Couldn’t risk Rassilon trapping him in a nightmare forever.

He had no doubt that the Doctor would one day make him (or Missy, since he was nearly done with this self) the recipient of his confession dial. He supposed it was only appropriate that Missy was returning the favor.

The thinking part of him, a Time Lord’s cold logic, told him that this was a sound decision. The Doctor was many things, but he was never cruel. He would not force horror onto his current self, much less Missy. He would never betray the trust of being given a confession dial.

But his animal self — damn his hearts for having _emotions_ — these... bursts of rage (“I will never stand with the Doctor!”) and envy (she was laughing, happy) and inadequacy (one full year that never was couldn’t win over the Doctor) and frustration (don’t want to change into her, not yet) were consuming him, and he was losing his battle with Time Lord mortality and his face was starting to burn with artron energy and he didn’t know how much longer he could hold on to this. This self. Harold Saxon, former Prime Minister. Foiler of Rassilon’s grand plan. Mr. Razor. Murderer of his future self. Hater of the Doctor. (Did he? Could he?)

The Master dragged his body toward the TARDIS console and snatched the confession dial from the compartment. He stabbed his fingers into knobs and buttons, deleting Missy’s final message for the Doctor.

“No one wins today,” he spat. Not the Doctor. Not his future self. Not himself even now.

Missy’s laughter grew louder in his ears. The drumbeats were fading.

 

It was always up to him to save himself.

With the last ounce of his strength, the Master returned to his TARDIS and materialized on Floor 507.

There she lay, truly dead with no trace of artron energy breaking through her skin, lifeless eyes staring into a starless, simulated sky.

He sneered.

“Is it worth it, _Missy_ , dying without helping the Doctor? He’ll never know. I made sure of that for us.”

He placed the confession dial onto her cold body and activated it. The patterns on the dial turned and a slim opening let out the light within.

A Time Lord’s consciousness was supposed to obtain absolution inside the dial before it was sent off to the matrix. He would never join his people in that collective hell. But if there was anything left of Missy, she (he, himself) would get to enjoy an eternity’s worth of simulated worlds to conquer. (Or to see. The universe was beautiful. Just not as beautiful as the Doctor, she’d said.)

He saw no light entering the dial before it closed, felt no echoing ripple in his telepathic mind. Did it work?

He supposed he would have to live through another regeneration to find out.

 

Inside the Type 40 TARDIS, Bill and Heather laid the Doctor gently onto the floor. Bill said her goodbye, then joined her pilot to travel the stars.

The console beeped, and the hologram projection circuitry came to life.

_Humans are so mortal. I mean you pop like balloons. I mean one heart? It’s your most important organ and you’ve no backup._

Time Lords knew backup, and the Time Lady with the crazy hair was an excellent TARDIS engineer. She had installed backup.

The hologram flickered back into focus. Backup message downloaded. Saved. Ready for viewing.

But for now, the TARDIS turned off the projection and kept the lights dim. For now, her Doctor needed rest and then another adventure before he would be ready to say goodbye, a proper one, to the Time Lady with crazy hair. Because it would be a long time until he would meet this Time Lady again.

In a different time. In different bodies. With different faces.

But their hearts would remain the same.

**Author's Note:**

> I know confession dials are sent to a Time Lord's best friend before their anticipated final death. In this case, I don't think Missy thought she was going to die for the last time. She just wanted the Doctor to have her confession dial as a symbol of her current incarnation's trust and friendship. And coming from a Time Lady who likes to blow up the rules to a Time Lord who likes to disregard them -- to hell with the rules, they'd both say!
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
